


filled space

by lizzieraindrops



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Beth Lives, Fluff, Gen, Healing, Sleepy Cuddles, spontaneous tumblr fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-05 05:04:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5362421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizzieraindrops/pseuds/lizzieraindrops
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beth in a clone cuddle pile. A oneshot originally posted for a prompt <a href="http://lizzieraindrops.tumblr.com/post/134572949924/beth-happiness">on tumblr</a>. <i>Nature abhors a vacuum</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	filled space

The first thing she notices is the lightness, the lack of tension behind her own eyes. For once, she wakes without instantly snapping her guards up around her, without the ache of muscles that never really released their strung tightness all night long. Instead, she is still and soft, and her gaze as she half-opens her eyes to see the golden morning-lit loft is easy instead of alert. There _is_ a knot in her neck from where she’s been leaning on Alison’s shoulder all night, but it’s just a normal sort of physical soreness that will soon vanish with a good stretch and coffee, not the kind that crawls out of her brain and down into her shoulders and stays. One of her feet has gone numb from where Helena has fallen asleep against her legs. They’re folded up onto Felix’s dilapidated couch still in her jeans and boots. She’s squashed between the two of them against the cushions, and a piece of Alison’s hair is tickling her nose, and it really can’t be good for her poor foot to be holding Helena’s weight like that; but Beth doesn’t want to move.

Instead, she explores the quietness of the room with her ears and with her eyes, irises dark with the lack of direct light. The only sound is the occasional hum of a passing vehicle outside and the soft breaths of half a dozen people, all but one of them sleeping. She sees Sarah sprawling in the armchair next to the couch, her hair spilling over the arm, taking up an absurdly large space with her tiny body. Beth remembers her playing with Cosima’s hair as the woman sat cross-legged at the foot of the armchair before her last night. Now, however, she’s somehow ended up lying flat on the coffee table in front of Beth, staring straight at the ceiling - or she would be if she wasn’t fast asleep with her glasses still on.

Beth can’t see Felix, but a brief murmur and rustle of sheets from somewhere off to the left tells her that he’s still sprawled in his for once gloriously clone-free bed, happy as a clam.

The quiet resumes as Felix settles back into sleep, but his rustling has woken Sarah. She makes a small, sleepy noise in her throat as she sits up and blinks blearily. She rests her palms on the seat cushion and hunches forward, catching Beth’s eye. Sarah exhales softly through her nose and smiles. She pries herself out of the chair to standing and heads off toward the kitchen in search of coffee or something stronger, briefly tousling Beth’s hair as she passes the couch. Her touch is so gentle.

The noise of her combat boots on the creaky floorboards rouses the others, but - perhaps because they know as well as she that they are safe - they don’t fully wake. Cosima murmurs something that sounds suspiciously scientific in her sleep, and her arm falls off the coffee table to brush Beth’s knee. Helena curls up a little tighter where she lays on top of Beth’s legs. The pink pillow of Alison’s cardigan-clad shoulder shifts under Beth’s ear, but she soon subsides back into the steady rhythm of smooth breaths.

Beth merely shifts her head slightly to ease her neck, and takes a very deep, slow breath that lets her melt even further into her sisters’ embrace. Her eyelids fall along with her chest as all the air flows out of her. She is not afraid. She is not hurting. She is not drowning. No necessities weigh upon her. She is not even numb - except for her foot, and that’s a different kind of numbness entirely. Rather, Beth realizes as she drifts off again, what she’s feeling is happiness.


End file.
